


Maybe

by Cmdr_Spadge



Series: Confluence [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Missing Scene, Owen is not always an arse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cmdr_Spadge/pseuds/Cmdr_Spadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once Lisa is dead, it's Owen who decides what to do with Ianto.</p><p>Written because I strongly believe that these two get on, deep deep deep down, and I'm also convinced that Owen is not always the King Prat that he makes himself out to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe

________________________________________

 

It’s Owen who picks him up from the floor and forces him to make eye contact. That surprises Ianto more than the creeping realisation that maybe Lisa had been dead all along. 

Suddenly his brain is running through all the conversations he had with her when she was shackled in the basement, and he's desperate to locate the point where she died and the machine took over.  
'Maybe it was when I pulled her out of Canary Wharf, maybe it was when I changed her IV for the first time, maybe…'

There’s a hand on his chin, halting his train of thought and tilting his head up in a gentle but clinical manner, and he’s forced to remember Owen. 

“You’re going to help me with her body, Ianto.” 

He isn’t snarling, or shouting and again Ianto finds himself surprised. Owen hates him. They all do. Don’t they? 

Owen seems to sense his question and he nods, “It’ll be ok. Eventually. Maybe.”

Maybe he’s right.

 

*~*

 

They place Lisa on the morgue trolley and somehow manage to get her up to the autopsy bay. 

Again, Owen makes Ianto look him in the eye, forcibly pulls him out of his mental mess and anchors him back in Torchwood. He doesn’t know what Jack’s intentions are and right now he doesn’t care. If the archivist isn’t retconned he’ll need to know what happened to the body, it’s the only way Owen can help him and he’s determined to do something. Ianto’s pain is still a raw memory and the words spat at them all hurt him and claw at something deep in Owen that he will never admit he possesses.

“I’m going to do an autopsy now.”

Ianto nods mutely, somehow registering that this is the sensible thing to do and he’s expected to agree.

“I want to watch.”

“You’re going to help.”

There’s a pause, as though Ianto is considering his options, though they both understand he doesn’t have any. 

“I want to help.” 

He catches the doctor's eye and tries to show that he’s grateful for this. Glad he’s being given a chance to cleanse her body of the day their world fell apart. Put her to rest as a human not a partially converted monster.

They seem to understand each other and that’s something new, despite his grief Ianto can’t help but be glad that he still has someone willing to help him in this way. However transitory this shared understanding might prove to be. 

Maybe it will help.

 

*~*

 

It takes them the better part of ten hours to remove the exoskeleton from her body, but it never crosses the mind of either to stop. Owen mutters soft instructions to Ianto and explains every step and process with a tireless patience neither knew he possessed. 

They don’t notice when Gwen brings them coffee and stale sandwiches, nor the numerous times that Jack stands and watches over them, face unreadable and stance defiant. 

The only time Ianto comes close to breaking down again is when Tosh, in her quiet way, places a container on the side and he knows instantly that it’s Lisa’s brain from the other body. 

Owen senses the change and he softly asks Ianto to pass him a scalpel, drawing his attention back to the job in hand. 

When the instrument is passed over to him he quickly squeezes Ianto’s hand. It’s enough to bring him back into the present although Ianto has no idea why it works. Maybe it’s the shock of the humanity of the action. It doesn’t even seem condescending, it would from anyone else, but this is Owen and reassurance and touching aren’t what he does. 

It means something. It might mean he doesn’t hate Ianto at all. 

Maybe he’ll hold on to that.

 

*~*

 

Ianto feels it’s important to sort out the paper work himself. Even if he is forced out of Torchwood and has his memories of her stolen, it somehow fits better with his conscience that he doesn’t leave her to the others to file away.

 

*~*

 

Owen has slipped up to Jack’s office while Ianto does his filling. He wants to tell the boss he’s taking Ianto home and ask what he intends to do to him. 

Before he can even start his demands or prepare his protestations Jack cuts him off.

“That was a good idea. Take him home now. Tell him I expect him back even if it’s just to hand in his resignation.” His head goes back down to the report on his desk.

“Shouldn’t you tell him?”

“No. Ianto and I have lied to each other enough over the last twelve months, we don’t need to start again so soon.”

Owen has no idea what this means but he’s starting to think that maybe there was something else behind the rage he saw from Jack and the pleading from Ianto. Perhaps this is even more crazily fucked up than he thought. 

He’s about to ask when he hears Ianto’s footsteps coming up from the morgue.

“Owen, take him home. Get him away from me. Before I say something I’ll regret.”

He doesn’t argue, he can’t really because he doesn’t understand what’s happening. It should have been a simple enough instruction to grasp but the tone Jack used and the look in his eyes meant it was anything but. 

Maybe it's better that he doesn't understand.

 

*~*

 

He’s bundled into Owen's car and he can almost hear the thoughts tumbling around in the doctor's mind, ticking over as they glide through the empty city. 

Finally the silence breaks.

“Why didn’t you tell us? No. Scrap that. Why didn’t you tell me? I’m a doctor for fucks sake.” 

He doesn’t shout at him, just puts more emotion into his words than usual and for the third time that night Ianto is surprised by him. 

He considers this long and hard before answering. What pops into his mind first is ‘because it was easier to lie’ but he finds himself wanting to give Owen a better answer. Wanting to repay him for what he’s done for Lisa in the last eleven hours.

“Would you have helped?” Is all he finally comes up with.

“I don’t know.”

Ianto is comforted by the honesty, like he’s been comforted by every other little thing that Owen has done since he pulled him up from the floor of that room and brought him back into the here and now. 

There’s another long pause broken only when the car reaches Ianto’s flat.

“Thanks.”

“Part of the job mate.” Owen mumbles.

“No, I meant…for being honest just now. For making me help you. For being the first to volunteer to come and look for me earlier.”

“You heard that did you?” A wry smile crosses Owen's lips, the first in what feels like days. “Well, don’t get your hopes up. I still think you’re a pain in the arse and I have no intention of being nice to you when you come back.” 

Ianto just shakes his head and finds himself smiling ever so slightly even though it hurts and feels like a betrayal of Lisa and everything he’s gone through in the last twelve months. 

Maybe everything will be all right eventually and Owen returning to his normal arrogant self is proof of that. 

Jack may well never speak to him again, Tosh is probably petrified of him and Gwen will try, and fail, to get him to open up; but Owen will be the same arrogant shit he’s always been. 

Ianto thinks perhaps he’ll cling to that, realises right then he can use it as an anchor to stop himself drowning in grief.

He steps out of the car and takes a deep breath of the dawn air, savouring briefly the feeling of hope, all the more bittersweet because he knows that as soon as he exhales it will be gone.

As he fumbles with his keys and as his eyes fill up with tears again he allows himself one more smile. 

He’ll go back to work soon. 

Maybe by then he won’t feel as bad and it won’t hurt as much. 

The world didn’t end, he didn’t kill his team, and Owen is still a prat. 

Maybe everything will get better.

~FIN~


End file.
